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What is the Federal Debt?

Gross Federal Debt: That’s the gross amount of debt outstanding issued by the US Treasury. “Debt held by the public” and “debt held by federal government accounts” here are components of Gross Federal Debt.

At the end of FY 2023 the federal debt was $32.99 trillion.

At the end of FY 2024 federal debt is “guesstimated” to amount to $35.11 trillion. Thus far, on 2024-04-29, the federal debt is $34.56 trillion. See Coronavirus Update page.

Here is the gross federal debt by year for the last decade:

Federal Debt in trillions
20132014201520162017201820192020202120222023 
$16.72$17.79$18.12$19.54$20.21$21.46$22.67$26.9$28.39$30.84$32.99 

Click for federal debt from 1960 to present.

Also, see National Debt, State Debt, Local Debt,
Agency Debt, and Federal Deficit.

Spending Analyses:

Debt, Deficit Analyses:

Numbers — Charts:

 

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Federal Debt Clock

Today the Federal Debt is about $34,562,760,121,518.06.

The amount is the gross outstanding debt issued by the United States Department of the Treasury since 1790 and reported here.

But, it doesn’t include state and local debt.

And, it doesn’t include so-called “agency debt.”

And, it doesn’t include the so-called unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Federal Debt per person is about $105,923.

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Federal Debt Analysis  

Recent US Federal Debt

Recent US Federal Debt

Chart D.11f: Recent US Federal Debt

Recent US Federal Debt as Pct GDP

Chart D.12f: Recent US Federal Debt as Pct GDP

Federal Debt increased sharply in response to the Great Recession of 2006-08, with debt rising from $9 trillion in 2007 to $15 trillion in 2011. Federal debt continues to increase about $1 trillion per year.

At the end of FY2023 federal debt was $32.99 trillion.


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Viewed as percent of GDP the increase in federal debt is not so startling. But federal debt has still increased from 60 percent of GDP to over 100 percent of GDP in less than ten years, and has remained at about 100 percent of GDP since 2012.

At the end of FY2023 the federal debt was 119.5 percent of GDP.

Latest US Federal Debt Forecast

Latest Federal Debt Forecast

Chart D.13f: Latest Federal Debt Forecast

US Federal Debt at the end of FY 2019 just before the COVID pandemic was $22.67 trillion. Pandemic spending boosted federal debt to $26.9 trillion in FY2020, and debt has increased substantially ever since, hitting $30.84 trillion in FY2022. Gross federal debt is forecast to be $44.19 trillion by FY 2029.

US Federal Debt Since 1900

Federal Debt since 1900

Chart D.14f: Federal Debt since 1900

Federal debt began the 20th century at less than 10 percent of GDP. It jerked above 30 percent as a result of World War I and then declined in the 1920s to 16.3 percent by 1929. Federal debt started to increase after the Crash of 1929, and rose above 40 percent in the depths of the Great Depression.

Federal debt exploded during World War II to over 120 percent of GDP, and then began a decline that bottomed out at 32 percent of GDP in 1974. Federal debt almost doubled in the 1980s, reaching 60 percent of GDP in 1990 and peaking at 66 percent of GDP in 1996, before declining to 56 percent in 2001. Federal debt started increasing again in the 2000s, reaching 70 percent of GDP in 2008. Then it exploded in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008, reaching 102 percent of GDP in 2011.

Federal debt has breached 100 percent of GDP twice since 1900: during World War II and in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.

US Federal Interest Since 1900

Federal Interest since 1900

Chart D.15f: Federal Interest since 1900

Federal interest payments began the 20th century at less than 0.2 percent of GDP. But the debt incurred in World War One caused the debt to explode to over 1.3 percent of GDP in 1921, and debt interest cost about one percent of GDP through the middle of World War II. Interest expense peaked at 1.7 percent of GDP in 1946 and settled down to about 1.1 to 1.2 percent of GDP until the 1970s.

Federal Interest payments cost 1.39 percent of GDP in 1974 and continued climbing, as the Federal Reserve increased interest rates, reaching 1.51 percent of GDP in 1978, 2.14 percent of GDP in 1981 before peaking at 3.16 percent of GDP in 1991. With a recession in 1990 and spending cuts in the 1990s, interest expense declined to 1.31 percent of GDP by 2004. Then it increased briefly before credit was relaxed in the Great Recession of 2008-09. Interest expense held steady at about 1.3 percent of GDP for the mid 2010s, rising to 1.75 percent GDP in 2019 before declining modestly during the COVID pandemic of 2020-2021.

US Federal Debt since the Founding

Federal Debt since the Founding

Chart D.16f: Federal Debt since the Founding


The United States federal government began with a substantial debt, the cost of the Revolutionary War. Under Alexander Hamilton’s funding system the debt was paid off by 1840. Government debt has typically peaked after wars. It breached 30 percent of GDP after the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War I. It breached 100 percent of GDP in World War II. Government debt also breached 100 percent of GDP in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.

Gross Federal Debt vs. Net Debt

Federal Debt Gross and Net

Chart D.17f: Federal Debt Gross and Net


The US federal government differentiates between Gross Debt issued by the US Treasury and Net Debt held by the public. The numbers on Gross Debt are published by the US Treasury here.

Numbers on various categories of federal debt, including Gross Debt, debt held by federal government accounts, debt held by the public, and debt held by the Federal Reserve System, are published every year by the Office of Management and Budget in the Federal Budget in the Historical Tables as Table 7.1 – Federal Debt at the End of the Year. The table starts in 1940. You can find the latest Table 7.1 in here.

The chart above shows three categories of federal debt.

1. Monetized debt (blue), i.e., federal debt bought by the Federal Reserve System

2. Debt held by the federal government (red) e.g., as IOUs for Social Security

3. Other debt (green), i.e., debt in public hands, including foreign governments.

CBO Long Term Forecast for Federal Debt

CBO Forecast for<br>Federal Publicly Held Debt

Chart D.18f: CBO Forecast for
Federal Publicly Held Debt

According to the latest forecast from the Congressional Budget Office, the federal public-held debt will grow from 102 percent of GDP in 2021 to 195 percent of GDP by 2050.

Recent OMB Federal Debt Forecasts

Chart D.19f: OMB Federal Debt Forecasts

Every year in the federal budget the Office of Management and Budget publishes "Table 7.1 - Federal Debt at the End of Year" that projects federal debt out five years. In the FY25 budget Table 7.1 (xlsx) provides estimates of federal debt out through FY 2029.

Chart D.18f shows the OMB federal debt forecasts for the FY2022, FY2023, FY2024, and FY2025 budgets. The actual historical federal debt up to end-of-year for FY2023 is shown in yellow.

Suggested Video: All About Debt

Top Debt Requests:

Find DEFICIT stats and history.

US BUDGET overview and pie chart.

Find NATIONAL DEBT today.

See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.

See BAR CHARTS of debt, debt.

Check STATE debt: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See DEBT ANALYSIS briefing.

See DEBT HISTORY briefing.

Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

Make your own CUSTOM CHART.

Debt Data Sources

Debt data is from official government sources.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.

Detailed table of debt data sources here.

Federal debt data begins in 1792.

State and local debt data begins in 1820.

State and local debt data for individual states begins in 1957.

Gross Federal Debt

Debt Now:  $34,562,760,121,518.06
Debt 2/2020:$23,409,959,150,243.63

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Data Sources for 2019_2029:

Sources for 2019:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

Sources for 2029:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

Blog

Federal Budget for FY25 Released

On March 11, 2024, we updated usgovernmentspending.com with the numbers from the Public Budget Database in the Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2025

Here is how headline budget estimates for the upcoming FY 2024 fiscal year have changed since the release of the FY 2024 budget a year ago in Winter 2023.

Federal Budget Changes for 2024
$ billionEstimate for 2024
in FY2024 Budget
Estimate for 2024
in FY2025 Budget
Change
Federal Outlays$6,371.8$6,940.9 +$569.1
Federal Receipts$4,802.5$5,081.6+$279.1
Federal Deficit$1,569.4$1,859.4+$290.0

You can see line item changes from budget to budget here. You can compare budget estimates with actuals here.

Account level spending estimates through FY 2029 come from the Outlays table in the Public Budget Database and were updated on usgovernmentspending.com on March 11, 2024.

Account level budget authority estimates through FY 2029 come from the Budget Authority table in the Public Budget Database and were updated on usgovernmentspending.com on March 11, 2024. 

Agency Debt Update for 2023
On March 11, 2024, usgovernmentspending.com updated its data for agency debt from the Federal Reserve Board database. Data is now available for the period 1945-2023. You can see our Agency Debt pag ...

US GDP for 2023 Updated
On January 19, 2024 usgovernmentspending.com updated its GDP series with the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, ...

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